64 E. L. THORNDIKE. 



To 3 the answers were : (a) "Yes. Some. More than either dogs or cats." 

 (/-) "Yes. Yes. Yes." (c) "In certain things, yes; mostly in those things 

 which are in compliance to the laws of their own nature." {d') "No. No. 

 Yes, they are born imitators." 



The only definite answer to question 4 was : " Take a dog or cat and close 

 them up in a room and go in and out several times, and you will find that they 

 will go to the door and stand up on their hind legs with front paws on the door 

 knob and try to open the door to get out. I could also give you a hundred more 

 such reasons." This was given by (3). 



The replies to a test question, however, go to show that 

 these opinions regarding imitation may be mistaken. Question 

 8 was : "If you wanted to teach a cat to get out of a cage by 

 opening an ordinary thumb-latch and then pushing the door, 

 would you take the cat's paw and push down the thumb-piece 

 with it and then push the door open with the paw, or would you 

 ]ust leave the cat inside until it learned the trick itself?" The sec- 

 ond is certainly the better way, as will be seen in a later part of this 

 paper, and pushing the latch with the cat's paw has absolutely no 

 beneficial influence on the formation of the association, yet {a) 

 and (^) both chose the first way, and (c) answered ambiguously. 

 Further, the only reason given is, of course, no reason at all. It 

 proves too much, for if there were such imitation as that, my 

 cats and dogs would surely have done the far simpler things re- 

 quired of them. I cannot find that trainers make any practical 

 use of imitation in teaching animals tricks, and on the whole I 

 think these replies leave the matter just where it was before. 

 They are mere opinions — not records of observed facts. It 

 seems arrogant and may seem to some unjustifiable thus to dis- 

 card testimony, to stick to a theory based on one's own experi- 

 ments in the face of these opinions. If I had wished to gain 

 applause and avoid adverse criticism, I would have abstained 

 from upholding the radical view of the preceding pages. At 

 times it seems incredible to me that the results of my experi- 

 ments should embody the truth of the matter, that there should 

 be no imitation. The theory based on them seems, even to me, 

 too radical, too novel. It seems highly improbable that I should 

 be right and all the others wrong. But I cannot avoid the 

 responsibility of giving what seems to my judgment the most 

 probable explanation of the results of the experiments ; and that 

 is the radical explanation already given. 



